>>279864970>>279867143You are both very wrong.
The early episodes are some of the best parts. There's more of a focus on the character of the wreks which gives you great character episodes like Karasu, Yuki, and Ran.
The series gets weak when it starts to follow the main four love square and just lampshades popular events at the time.
The series picks this back up at certain points throughout the series, but the tight ten minute half episode format keeps the plot moving quick, whereas you can really see the twenty minute episodes start to drag when they have no good B-plot.
Furthermore, 2/3rds (or by my estimation, halfway through the series) there's a lull of truly awful episodes. The fox episodes? The cherry blossom play episode? Sakura's dream episode? The motherfucking snow man episode? They are disjointed, long, dry, and not funny at all.
Of course, things get better near the end as Rumiko starts to remember various fun characters she made like Karasu and the JC delinquent space girls.